Background

The People of the Stars

Earthfall: The planet of NiC-997 was a mining colony for the Beurug Alliance. The world was little more than a barren rock in space devoid of even life-giving water. The mostly Kulthanian colonists were utterly at the mercy of the off-world mega corps, and life there was harsh and short as the mining conglomerates wrung every bit of profit from the poor populace. It was on this world, during one of its many and frequent mine collapses, a trapped miner made an era-defining discovery. He was the only survivor of hundreds of lost miners, and his name was Laars Skettelberg, later to be known as Kaine. What exactly Skettelberg found in that mine he would never answer definitively. All he would say was that he had survived for a purpose, to unite the galaxy under the rule of the Directive. Skettelberg quickly proved popular to the wretched underclass of the desolate mining world. His passion and preternatural charisma raised their morale enough to resist their wealthy and uncaring masters. Those very same masters quickly decided to counter Skettelberg with armed force. Filled with fiery zeal for the Directive, the poor miners used all available tools to beat back each and every assault the mine-owners mercenaries made. Then they made the audacious decision to assault the owner’s camps themselves. With atrocious losses, Skettelberg’s followers succeeded in capturing 2/3 of the owers bases and 90 percent of all the mines. At this point, several of the conglomerates sent representatives to talk with Sketterberg. To his credit, he met with them, though he insisted on speaking with the Igori chiefs as well. After all, the Directive is meant to be spread by words as well as bloodshed. Within a Space Month, the chiefs of some of the richest interstellar business firms had converted to the Directive’s side. Above the planet of Emos IV, on the luxury space-yacht Embrace of Songs, was signed a treaty of peace and unity that brought the power of several factions under the rule of Skettelberg. The Covenant of Emos was born. Over the course of several centuries, the multi=species Covenant spread into the galaxy. Sometimes a world and its species was brought into the Covenant by spectacular diplomacy. Other times a world would be conquered and its people turned into slaves. Many tried to fight against the Covenant, of which the Korgés Empire was the most frequent opponent, but the Minabel Commonwealth also stood tall against the bloody followers of the Directive. Others also found cause to fight against the Covenant and their revolutionary doctrine, but all failed. Even the great force for law and order in the galaxy, the Glassmen Corps, failed to stop the relentless 900 hundred year advance of Covenant. Soon it became apparent that only the powerful Prolans possessed the might to stop Skettelberg’s conquest, but they were often aloof and uncaring of the galaxy at large and Skettelberg was wise enough not to antagonize them. It was at this time that a Covenant explorer discovered Earth and humans. In the human year of 2117, a scan of their history showed that humans had developed quite rapidly, creating urbanized civilization only 6,000 years ago human time and went through industrialization to digitization in only 300 years. By the standards of the Mirak-Kilahz Scale of Civilizational Development, the speed of their technological development meant that humans were clearly a sapient creature that was loving and communal with very little hate and violent intentions. While their physical prowess was below known average, the Covenant deemed that human would make decent slave labor. The order was given, and the Covenant attacked Earth in the human year of 2147. There was negligible resistance especially since the invasion force was well over 20 million ground soldiers and 20 Barrage ships. Half of the human population was killed outright and the rest was gathered up for slavery. The weapons used in the attacked poisoned the whole atmosphere, rendering Earth unable to support human life. Between the dates March 4, 2147 to September 17, 2147, Earth had fallen.

The Star War: Almost as soon as the Covenant chattel ships left the Sol system, tens of thousands of humans organized slave revolts. Most were unsuccessful, but a few managed to take over their ship and escape into the void. Others that were sold wholesale to wealthy worlds also revolted at first opportunity, escaping to space capable ships. Fearful for their lives, and under constant threat of destruction, these new space faring humans began to fight a guerilla war against the Covenant, known as the Star War. Slowly at first, but soon more intensely and coordinated, these space-faring humans proved to be a thorn in the side of the Covenant. For a good many years the humans harried Covenant shipping and destroyed their planet bound facilities. As it became apparent that the Covenant could not defend against such violence, many officials began to question the direction of Skettelberg, known by humans as Kaine, was taking the Covenant. Soon the empire of Kaine, began to unravel as it started to descend into civil war. The many violent rebellions by ambitious heretics allowed the enemies of Covenant to achieve small but significant victories against the mighty, evil empire. But the most significant factor in the Covenant’s fall was the space-faring humans, who were a constant threat to the rear. These raids soon became campaigns for whole worlds controlled by the Covenant, though few were permanently occupied. Three campaigns in particular were etched into human memory and galactic history. The first campaign was the Battle for New Alkos IV. A taskforce of human and alien mercenaries lured a large Covenant army to the planet in an attempt to inflict a devastating defeat. The human force lost the Alkos Campaign suffer 2 million causalities, but it was certainly a tactical victory as the humans were able to extricate themselves with most of their important equipment. More importantly, the campaign taught the humans many important lessons about large-scale space warfare. These lessons were used nearly a century later in the Nymedia Campaign. In this battle, the human forces got the better of the Covenant force, who had also learned lessons from Alkos IV and tried to trap the humans. Instead the human managed to pin the Covenant in place, and then subjected them to a cataclysmic bombardment of nuclear weapons. The defeat at Nymedia was a critical blow to the military capabilities of the Covenant. From then on Humanity had little to fear from the Covenant, or most any other power for that matter. Indeed, by the end of the thousand year war, most Humans had given up pursuing the war. The slowly dying Empire of the Directive had lost its leader Kaine and had been pushed to operating on only a half dozen world. The last major battle of the Star War occurred on the jungle world of Hythe. The campaign was hardly as big as the other two major battles, and was conducted as more of an afterthought. But the battle ended in victory for the humans, ending the Covenant forever.

Mankind Ascendant: At the end of the Star War, a new race of human had arisen in the galaxy. Those humans that stayed aboard their spaceship refuges, striking their foe from the shadows of outer space, coalesced into an unique and potent ethno-culture; the Gendesétoiles. The Gendesétoiles were based solely on large habitat ships, forsaking life on planets, terribly vulnerable to off-world invasion, for the safety of mobile spacecraft. The Gedesétoiles lived in a tribal society, with each ship its own self-contained community. Each ship would have an elected Master who would guide the ship and inhabitants in all endeavors, and all men between the ages of 17-50 had to serve as warriors for the ship’s army. These Masters would often ally their ship to other ships, forming a warband with one Master elected to the rank of Warchief. But, as always, wealth concentrates. Soon enough the office of Ship Master became hereditary and a new breed of high noble came about. Nearly 3,000 years after the Earthfall event, The Gendesétoiles developed into a three-tiered feudal society and would remain that way for a long time. At the bottom were the serfs, people who possessed little influence on the ship and the galaxy at large, and could only leave the ship with the permission of the Master (usually as soldiers). Above the serfs were the Gentry, highly educated and skilled technicians and managers, who made sure the ship runs smoothly. Counted amongst the Gentry are the elite warriors of the Gendesétoiles, such as the Étoileguerrier. This class was allowed to leave the ship at anytime they choose, because to deny them is to risk poor performance or worse. At the top of Gendesétoiles society were the Masters, the high nobility. Warbands and elected Warchiefs would remain in organization, but more, many more Masters would put their ships under the auspices of a Horde ruled over by a hereditary Roi. The position of Roi processed a great deal of power including the creation of a Warband and appointment of a Warchief. Critically, each individual Master owed loyalty directly to the Roi rather than through the Warchief. While socially the Gendesétoiles were a strange mix of tribalism and feudalism, economically they were more like a criminal organization. As very little can be produced on a spaceship those attempting to make lives upon it have little option but piracy and extortion. Many resisted such violence against their interests, but the guerilla tactics that proved so effective in the Star War proved equally effective against other powers. Through careful applications of extreme violence and gentle diplomacy many Gendesétoile hordes managed to created miniature but potent mini-empires amongst the shadows of the stars. So confident grew the leaders of the Gendesétoile that they even started to challenge the mighty Tess’Ailokan, the great empire of prolans and de facto rulers of the galaxy. It began as a series of raids on small colony worlds, but it eventually these attacks graduated to full-scale ransacking of large and important Tess’Ailokan worlds. It wasn’t long until the Tess’Ailokan responded with great military force, great enough for the Gendesétoile to declare a Second Star War. Once again, the Gendesétoile fought this war with their customary guerilla tactics. However, the prolans, and the Tess’Ailokan particularly, possessed the power and resources to counter such tactics. They mobilized vast fleets to patrol the forgotten and unknown pathways in the cosmos and to cover worlds important the Gendesétoile economy, garrisoning them with large armies. Almost 200 years, the many Gendesétoile hordes fought back with tenacity and grit, hoping the prolans would give up and give in. But prolans are haughty creatures by nature who would never give in to their inferiors. The writing was on the wall, and one by one, every horde contacted the Tess’Ailokan commander in chief to offer terms of surrender. The prolans were generous, allowing the humans to operate business as usual, with the caveat that they would not deliberately attack Tess’Ailokan worlds (a provision forgotten in time by both sides). Though it ended as Status Quo Ante Bellum, no amount of spin could ignore the fact that the humans had lost the Second Star War.

The Edge of Tomorrow: The end of the Second Star War was the start of a new beginning for the Gendesétoile. The war had shown many limitations they possessed. In correcting them the Gendesétoile hordes became even more powerful and efficient, the opposite of what the other alien powers had hoped would become of the space-faring humans. Indeed, the Gendesétoile experienced an explosion in population that allowed them to expand to almost every corner of the galaxy. Their empires became more complex and their roots in galactic affairs ever deeper. Most alien powers even admit that the Gendesétoile were instrumental in blunting the Zurghan Vhaul invasion, wrecking their supply lines and forcing them to ignore the mobilizing counter attack. In the year 12,147 A.D., 10,000 years after the Earthfall event, mankind stands poised to take the galaxy as their own.

The Forever Empire

The Fall and Rise of the Prolan Race: They are among the oldest of all the sapient creatures in the galaxy. Nurtured on the primal world, Na’Vasin, the naturally long lived prolans quickly rose to space faring technology from spears and arrows in the space of only a few millennium. Once amongst the stars, the prolans learned that they were not alone in the universe. Other first ones also plied the stars in furious exploration, some searching for artifacts of the long lost Precursor race. But no matter if they were the aggressive Bar’Vaarlan, or the enigmatic Shadowmen, the prolans always came on top of their adversaries. The primary factors in their rise to power and prominence was their deep connection to the Tellerasy, the life-force that surrounds and penetrates all living creatures binding the galaxy together, and the Kuron power crystals found only on their home world. The Tellerasy could be accessed by almost anyone, some more than others, but the prolans possessed an even greater ability to access the arcane field. Indeed, they were biologically formed to use the Tellerasy, their abilities were increasing after focusing the Tellerasy through the Kuron crystals. Indeed, every bit of their awesome technological prowess stemmed from the everlasting energy the crystals produced. Armed with this great advantage, the prolans became the largest and most expansive of the First Ones. Thousands of worlds were settled and incorporated into their insurmountable empire. Whole worlds were transfigured at their whim. The very stars were moved at their command. They were the galaxy! But the prolan mind was one of great intensity. Every experience for them is felt a thousand fold than for other, lesser being. It is there greatest strength, and their most horrifying flaw. Ascension as the dominate force in the galaxy left them with little work. All labor and defense was done by “living” automatons, allowing them to look inward to a degree that no other was capable of doing. The entirety of their long lives was now devoted to the pursuit of pleasure. But the intensity of their mind necessitated ever greater acts of debauchery. All of prolan society became a cesspool of decadent pleasure seekers, hell-bent on experiencing the most depraved acts their feverish minds could conceive. Secretive cults sprang up with awful rapidity, their drug addicted adherents ravaged the many worlds of the prolan empire looking for new victims to use in their most depraved rituals of ecstasy. Many of the First Ones tried to warn the prolan race that their decent into madness would end only in their complete extinction, and unleash horror on the universe that destroy all of creation . But those in authority either didn’t care or were already a part of the problem. And so the prolans continued to march along their path of ecstatic decadence and their ultimate doom.

The War of Redemption: Not all prolans continued along the path of extinction that their fellows plunged into headlong. Many sought to escape the destruction by traveling to the far reaches of the galaxy and away from the core of the prolan worlds. Millions solemnly boarded hundreds of transport ships to parts unknown. One man was on the verge of boarding one such transport, but at the last minute he chose not to do so. Theoallafin Ulatar was once an initiate The Glorious Unity, one of the many pleasure cults running rampant all over prolan society. However, his family, particularly his sister Gloradiel, decided to be proactive about his descent into madness. She forced her way into The Glorious Unity’s temple, and violently subdued and extracted him from the temple. Once saved, Theoallafin made ready to leave with his family to a new world and a new life. But at the last moment, he left them to return to the cult. However, he did not go to join them but recruit them, for he had an epiphany. He would save his people in the same way his own sister saved him. The Glorious Unity cult became the nucleus of an army that Theoallafin would raise to wipe all of prolan space clean of those pleasure cults that perverted this mighty and pure creature. For many hundreds of years Theoallafin waged a War of Redemption against the Old Society, throwing it down with such ferocity that it may never rise again. But Theoallafin did not simply wage war in order to destroy the corrupting nature of prolans. At the same time he laid the foundations of a new empire of the prolan race. An imperial governing force, whose unofficial mandate would be to ensure the pleasure cults of the past would never again form to threaten to destroy prolanites. It would have institutions that would make certain of prolan purity and the existence of the empire. Institutions like the Grand Council composed of the wealthy elite, and the Order of the Inquesters, political operatives with the mandate to enforce the will of the Empire and the Emperors through all necessary means both military and diplomatic. This empire would be known as the Tess’Ailokan: the Empire of Forever.

The Age of Empire: Over the next 2 million years, the Tess’Āilokan would manage to persevere. Theoallafin’s first and primary decree was to eliminate all laborious machines (specific exemptions would be made eventually). All labor would now be done entirely by hand. Now forced to work for basic survival, the many prolans had no more time to pursue pleasurable activities. But, as always, wealth concentrates. Many prolans became rich enough to no longer need work, something Imperial officials could not countenanced. However, these new idle rich quickly found proactive uses of their time. Many would found and join organizations, some of which would pursue study, becoming scholarly aristocrats that would end up governing the Empire. Other organizations would be founded to be militant orders devoted to defending Imperial society, though they would never become official departments of the military. These wealthy aristocrats would prove themselves integral to the survival of the Empire. Its first crisis was against itself. Theoallafin, for reason never known, did not bear a child (though it is speculated that he either had insurmountable impure thoughts for his sister or that he wished for the Imperial citizenry to fight amongst themselves for power in order to distract them from pursuits of pleasure). The issue of succession to the imperial throne finally bore down to Theoallafin’s leading general and a candidate chosen by, read manipulated into supporting, the Grand Council. Civil war was averted only narrowly when the general relented and pledged his support and loyalty to the Councilman. This would not be the first succession crisis the Tess’Āilokan would endure, and rarely did they end so peacefully. However, those crises rarely developed into something truly existential, which happened with some alarming frequency. The very first, and decidedly greatest, threat to the Tess’Āilokan was the insectoid Ssayai between 100,000-105,000 years since the founding of the empire. With a hive mind connected to the Tellerasy, and a horrifying ability to reproduce under any circumstances, any war between was seemingly doomed to failure. Indeed, lesser races could only flee in a mad bid to escape. But prolans are proud by nature. They fought against the Ssayai with all of their power and all of their strength. But it never seemed enough to put them down permanently. It wasn’t until the Emperor Dicleonia took to the field, and used a massive buildup of Tellerasy energy to destroy the hive mind of the Ssayai did the war finally end with a decisive victory for the prolan Tess’Āilokan. Other threats to prolanites would come over the ages, rarely rising to the threat level of the Ssayai, but all would attempt to take their place on the top of the galactic order over the bodies of prolans. One of the most recent attempt to challenge the power of the Tess’Āilokan was a faction of humans called the Gendesétoiles. At first, this challenge came in the form of destructive raids on newly founded colony worlds and isolated outposts; regular fare for a galaxy ever at war. But the attacks quickly became larger and more destructive, and once they began to strike at some of the core worlds of the empire with limited success, the Gendesétoiles became a true threat. The war against the humans began with an attack on a human settled world near the border of the Tess’Āilokan. The attack was brutal and the Tess’Āilokan forces successfully overran the world. However, prolans are not genocidal by nature. Enough humans survived to be interrogated, and the prolans learned that they made a terrible mistake; this human world had no affiliation with the real attackers. But it was still fortunate for the prolans, because the world-bound humans provided the prolans with knowledge on how to ultimately defeat their enigmatic enemy; mobilize a large army (of a size only the Tess’Āilokan could manage), occupy the space around the worlds the Gendesétoiles claimed as their own, all the while patrolling the lesser known space lanes to confront them directly. When the Gendesétoiles hordes finally sued for peace, the prolans decided to be generous and allow them to return to their prewar status. Though this war was hardly the most terrible the prolans of the Tess’Āilokan would ever wage, Tess’Āilokian scholars were shocked to discover that it was one of their most expensive. A far more costly conflict, however, was the war against the extra-galactic invasion of the Zurghan Vhaul. At first, the prolan did not respond to the new threat believing that the Zurghan Vhaul were peaceful intergalactic migrants. But after a year of relentlessly pushing into the galaxy proper turned into a full-scale invasion of the Tess’Āilokan, the prolans knew just what they were dealing with. The extreme bio-technology of the Zurghan Vhaul easily matched the seemingly magical devices of the prolans. If not for the actions of the space-faring humans the Tess’Āilokan would certainly have been overrun. But as it was, the prolans were granted precious time to organized a great force to counter attack the malicious would-be conquerors. The Zurghan Vhaul were driven back with such ferocity, they the alien beings felt the closest they could to blind panic. But then the Emperor, Stupuros IV, decided to end the conflict by challenging the leader of the honor obsessed Zurghan Vhaul to personal one-on-one combat. The duel lasted 6 hours, but the Emperor lost and was killed, though the Leader Supreme also died from wounds sustained from the duel. The war ended though fortunately for the galaxy, the Zurghan Vhaul was now too weak to continue with fresh campaigns.

Lethargy: The Tess’Āilokan has now reigned supreme in the galaxy for 2,000,000 years. Though it has gone from ultimate power outer space to one of only several major powers and back again, the empire is currently in a dangerous lethargy. The latest series of wars against powerful forces that have specifically challenged their position has left the Tess’Āilokan demoralized and war-weary. Many now believe that the empire might now be beginning a slow decline into oblivion, that all it will take is a focused and powerful attack to send it down. But the empire still has many powerful agents willing to defend and strengthen her, just as it has for the last 2,000 millennia.

The Ultimate Organism

The Hive: Deep in the darkest reaches of the far away galaxy known only as NGC 4013, a great evil was born. It was called by many names, but it had none of its own. If it called itself anything, it would be the Hive. For that is what it was; a hive mind super-organism that had only one goal; to consume all life and spread their genetic information. Change was their entire essence. When all life on their homeworld was consumed, it developed space capable organisms to transport the whole hive to new worlds. When one of the new worlds had industrial level weapons to defend against it, hardened chitins armor and compact muscles were developed in order to attack metallic armor. When interstellar empires were contacted, larvae producing queens were developed in order to increase its numbers. For every encounter of real resistance, the hive would evolve and develop something to destroy that resistance. As the denizens of the NGC 4013 became increasingly adept at combating the scourge of the hive, ever new creatures were developed to overcome the resistance. Then the hive created the u’tong. These were bipedal creatures with true sapience and autonomy from the hive. They were at once separate from the hive, and a part of it; masters of the hive, and its most loyal slaves. The great individual intelligence of the u’tongs no only allowed them to adapt to the latest strategies of their foes, but they could shape the evolution of creatures of the hive for better campaigns of conquest and consumption. In many millions of years the u’tong, the ultimate creature of the ultimate organism, took the entirety of NGC 4013 for the glory and survival of the hive.

The Long Night: With the goal of consuming all life wherever it could be found now complete, the hive stagnated. The only enemy left was itself. But consuming creatures spawned by its own kind did not sit well with the hive. For centuries, even as they continued to fight amongst themselves, the hive hunted down those primitive life forms that could never defend themselves against the u’tong and the hive, but nevertheless provided sustenance. The u’tong collectively understood that the galaxy they lived in could no longer be lived in. So they concentrated their efforts on shaping moon-sized creatures that could house billions of u’tong and other creatures of the hive. These ziz creatures would ply the never-ending void that exists between galaxy, taking the several factions of u’tong on a glorious journey to new worlds to conquer and consume. One faction of u’tong were known as the Zurghan Vhaul. The Zurghan Vhaul believe that their particular pantheon weakens and slowly dies every day, and that blood flowing from sacrifice and warfare strengthens them. U’tongs were hyper-violent with a poor sense of self-preservation to begin with, but the Zurghan Vhaul took those traits through ideology to an extreme. Even their fellow u’tong were not safe from their violent actions, not that they were utterly horrified by the violence. When the hive began their migration from NGC 4013 to stars unknown, Zurghan Vhaul leaders fasted and meditated on the subject of destination. They concluded that the gods wished for them to travel even further away than many of their siblings would cross to. Over a million years passed while the Zurghan Vhaul trekked the void in their zizs. In the intervening years, the Zurghan Vhaul had gone through several cultural and political revolutions, although their core religious tenant always remained. When they at last reached the very edges of the Milky Way, Vhaulatan Eck in their tongue, they had settled on a culture with a strict caste-based society; at top the ruling clan lead by the Leader Supreme, followed by the Religious Caste centered around the Conclave, the Warrior Caste with its meritocratic hierarchy, the shaper caste separated into many Orders, and finally the Laborers and their Cliques. Before they enter the galaxy proper, however, the Leader Supreme, Quishlah Vho, ordered several scouting missions where they learned of all the new denizens in the galaxy. This knowledge sent the Zurghan Vhaul’s blood to boil and the mouths began to salivate at the thought of warring for a new galactic plane.

Invasion: When they were a scant 5,000 light-years from Vhaulatan Eck, the Zurghan Vhaul sent long range scouts into the new galaxy. Within the stellar realm, these scout units became another space faring object in a galaxy full of space travelers. But they provided invaluable knowledge of their target, specifically that their greatest foe would be the prolans of the Tess’Ailokan. After many years of planning, Lashin Jo, Ultimate Commander of the Zurghan Vhaul military forces felt confident that victory would come. Their warriors numbered in the hundreds of billions when the invasion began. The Zurghan Vhaul attacked with as much speed as could be possible on their. The unprecedented nature of the Zurghan Vhaul’s attack from outside the galaxy aided their assault as few of the galaxy’s biggest powers took the threat seriously believing that there was no galactic power capable of the scale of warfare the fearful refugees reported. Only the humans realized the power and evil of the invading Zurghan Vhaul. Several Gendesétoiles hordes operated in the path of the extra-galactic invasion. They saw firsthand the extreme barbarity and cruelty the Zurghan Vhaul were capable of committing. Transmitting this information to every horde in the galaxy, fighters and starships streamed to the new conflict zone to wage the Third Star War. The humans fought in their typical style; hitting quickly and violently then escaping into the unknown regions of space. However, this was done on scale never before seen, with a level of coordination never before seen. Though the Zurghan Vhaul’s war effort was hurt by these attacks, it was not quite enough to keep them from organizing further incursions into the galactic core and prolan space in particular. The attack involved many tens of billions of warriors and tens of thousands of capital ships. The Tess’Āilokan reeled from the great assault. Indeed, the scale of the attack was unprecedented in Tess’Āilokan history, leaving the leaders of the great prolan empire scrambling to respond. The Zurghan Vhaul’s forces penetrated deep into the Tess’Āilokan, leading Quishlah Couris, the Supreme Commander of the Prolan Frong, to believed, correctly as it was later admitted, that a further push into prolan space would shatter the Tess’Āilokan. But Lashin Jo had no more ships or warriors to reinforce Quishlah Couris. By this time the Gendesétoiles fighters and spacecraft had forced the Zurghan Vhaul to devote a great quantity of their military capacities to defending their supply lines and fortified outposts. There were now too many ships needed to patrol the occupied space lanes for any to be sent to the multiple Fronts. As Lashin Jo tried desperately to find and destroy Gendesétoiles forces, the pause in the fighting on the Fronts gave the prolan the time needed to build up their own forces for a counterattack against the invaders.

Backlash: The counter attack initiated by the Tess’Āilokan was truly devastating. Whole worlds were scorched to ash and glass as the vengeful prolan punished the wicked and cruel Zurghan Vhaul for all of their sins. Quishlah Couris was ordered to defend all gains, and did so with great zeal. But for all of his skill and the skill of his sub-commanders, the Tess’Āilokan army was irresistible. Within the year, the Zurghan Vhaul were driven out of prolan space and several light-years besides . At the same time, the warriors of the Gendesétoiles reached a kind of critical mass. No longer were they only attacking vulnerable shipping and isolated outposts. Now they were taking the war to more secure worlds, destroying a great deal of warriors and war bugs of the Zurghan Vhaul. Though the Gendesétoiles lacked the capacity to occupy these worlds, the losses were devastating enough to the invaders making sure that they had less and less strength to wield against the vengeful galaxy that had now mobilized all of its strength. All any of the Zurghan Vhaul could do was pray to the gods that their enemies would delivered into their hands. In an obscene twist of fate, their prayers were answered. The prolan emperor, Joallmen LIIV, saw the great destruction that fighting the Zurghan Vhaul was causing. Desperate to end the slaughter, Joallmen challenged the Zurghan Vhaul leader to a duel with the fate of the galaxy at stake. If the Emperor of the Tess’Āilokan won, the Zurghan Vhaul would leave the galaxy outright, but if the Leader Supreme won, all space currently held by the Zurghan Vhaul would become inviolable. On the distant fringe world of Cal’thod, Joallmen and Quishlah Vho did battle for several hours. And in the end it was the prolan leader who fell down dead; victory was with the Leader Supreme. Though he did not live long to enjoy his difficult win. He could only walk a few steps before he too fell down dead. To their credit, the Tess’Āilokan honored the results of the duel and ordered all of their forces to stand down. However, and luckily for the galaxy, the Gendesétoiles were not party to the deal, despite the best efforts of the Tess’Āilokan liaisons. Just after the duel took place, Gendesétoiles forces conducted a highly coordinated multi-targeted assault in an attempt assassinate all members of the Zurghan Vhaul’s ruling family, leaving the Zurghan Vhaul leaderless in a new and hostile galaxy.

The Dream of the Stars The Zurghan Vhaul now sit in a state of near constant civil war. In the absence of the strong leadership of the Vho lineage, warlords have sprung up all over Zurghan Vhaul controlled space. Some have attempted to adopt their own policies independent of the Zurghan Vhaul as a whole, but for the most part these lords of war have fought to take control of the whole of their society. However, any who think that the Zurghan Vhaul are destroying themselves and ending their threat internally is wrong. Even in their divided and wreaked state the Zurghan Vhaul still possess one of the greatest forces in the galaxy. All it will take is one strong leader, full of wit and command to unite the invaders into a single force of bloodshed, a fact that gives the natives much to dread over.